Download fabric images to kickstart your next quilt design

This week on QUILTsocial I’m going to be making a project with Northcott’s new City Scene fabric line. When I found out that I’d be receiving these fabrics I first went online to look at the images on the Northcott website.

When Nellie and I design pattern for Northcott, we’re given the image files (before they’re even printed on fabric) and then we design our pattern in a quilting software. But once the fabrics are available to the public, Northcott puts these image files on their website so that any customer can use the files in their own computer program. Today I’m going to show you how to download these files for your own use!

Downloading fabric images

When you first access the Northcott website you’ll see previews of some of their upcoming fabric lines and the different pages that you can access are listed along the top of the page. If you select Products you’ll be directed to the following page. From here you can select Coming Soon or Current Collections or any of the other sections listed. Since the City Scene fabrics are brand new, I selected the Coming Soon section.

The Products section of the website

As you can see, Northcott has a HUGE selection of new fabric lines coming out!!

The Coming Soon page

After selecting the City Scene, the first colorway of the fabric line is shown, along with any basic Northcott fabrics that coordinate with the line. City Scene comes in two colorways: “Urban Oasis” and “Urban Mist“.

The Urban Oasis colorway

Along the right side of the screen, you’ll see a Download Fabrics for EQ.

The City Scene product page

When you click on that box, you’ll have this screen pop up.

The Win Rip popup screen

If you select the 75 file, the following screen will appear. Here you can select all of the files in the fabric line. Each number is a different print. The fabric images in this file will all be from the colorway that you selected. As you can see, there is also a file that contains the Toscana coordinates for the fabrics.

Highlight the files

Once you highlighted the fabric files, you click on the extract to button at the top of the page. Your computer will then ask you what file folder you would like to use to save the images. I’ve chosen to save the images in my Dropbox folder.

The saved files

Now that the images are saved on my computer, I can upload them into my computer design program. I’ll use that program to figure out what kind of project we’ll make this week.

You can also view the images as full sized photos on your computer AND see which ones inspire you the most – it’s ALMOST as good as fondling fabrics at your local quilt shop!!

This is part 1 of 5 in this series.

I have been designing and publishing quilt patterns for the last 16 years under the business name Fairfield Road Designs. My patterns range from fusible applique and piecing to felted wool applique and punchneedle. You can see all of patterns on my website www.fairfieldroaddesigns.com.